Why is it called Fruits Basket? Fruits Basket is a romance anime that first aired in 2001. However, in 2019, the series had a remake with three seasons and a movie.
The title of the show, Fruits Basket, comes from a Japanese children’s game where kids sit around in a circle. The one in charge assigns each participant a fruit. This game had a backstory, especially in the childhood of one of the main characters in the series, Honda Tohru.
When Tohru was a little kid, she was always the odd one out. She never had any friends she was close to, and no one she approached accepted her with an open heart. Whenever her classmates would play fruits basket, she’d always be assigned the role of being an Onigiri (n. a Japanese dish consisting of small balls or triangles of rice stuffed with a pickled or salted filling, and typically wrapped in dried seaweed.), not a fruit, which essentially meant she wasn’t meant to be in the game at all.
Later on, we see that Tohru literally becomes an Onigiri. Because of her mother’s death, she was forced to live alone in the forest. One day, she meets the Sohma Clan and is invited to live with Shigure, Yuki, and Kyo. However, no matter how much she wants to help their family, she will never be able to, because they are the fruits in the basket, and she is an Onigiri.
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Are Fruits Basket Characters Related?
Aside from biological siblings Yuki and Ayame, Kureno and Shigure, and Momiji and Momo, no one else in the Sohma clan are blood-related. Though they have the same constituents, they are not biologically inclined at all.
This would make sense when seen from the Zodiac perspective. The Sohma Clan was made because they had a special constituent binding them together. Selected members of the clan can turn into zodiac animals. However, if we trace back to the original gathering of the animals, none of them were actually related by blood.
The only relationship they had with each other was that the animals who were in the gathering had to pass down the curse or the bond to the next generation so that they could live in harmony with each other forever.
What is Fruits Basket About?
Fruits Basket follows the story of Honda Tohru and her days with the boys and girls of the Sohma Clan. Being orphaned right after starting high school, Honda Tohru had to live with her Father’s family. But because they didn’t like her all that much, she decided she’d live on her own.
Because she was only in high school, and her part-time job did not pay her enough to rent a place of her own, Tohru decided to pitch a tent in the forest near her school and stay there. One day, after a terrible storm, Yuki Sohma, her classmate, found her tent and invited her to come and live with them on the condition that she does the cooking and cleaning for him and Shigure Sohma, his brother’s close friend.
Tohru specializes in cooking and cleaning, so she figured this was a good deal for her. Not long after, she also meets Kyo Sohma, Yuki’s sworn enemy. Because of an unprecedented incident, Tohru also finds out that selected members of the Sohma Clan can turn into their zodiac animal equivalents just by interacting with the opposite sex.
They must find an answer to break the curse of the Zodiacs, and just like that, their lives become entangled in a twisted fate of romance, friendship, curses, and everything else in between.
Who is Fruits Basket’s Main Character?
Fruits Basket has three main characters: Yuki Sohma, Kyo Sohma, and Honda Tohru. However, the story does not simply revolve around the three of them. As the seasons go on, we see all three of them interacting with the different members of the Sohma Clan and even their high school friends.
These interactions also open up different storylines about the different characters, but it does not deviate away from the original plot of the story involving Yuki, Kyo, and Tohru. Though their stories may be different, a common characteristic of the Sohma Clan is that they all somehow have terrible pasts that lead them to where they are now.
Is Fruits Basket Sad?
Rather than being called sad, it’s better to say that Fruits Basket was heavy. But it does not end that way. Like most anime, Fruits Basket gives you a tragic plot in between. It discusses the trauma and the tragic pasts of each character but gives you a reason to keep on watching.
Fruits Basket is an anime we would recommend if you’re into shows that give you the feels. As aforementioned, it is still, after all, a romance anime, and what’s a romance anime without all the heart-fluttering romance scenes?!
P.S. Don’t worry though, the first season was fun! And I swear, it gets better!
Fruits Basket can be watched and streamed on Hulu, Funimation, and Crunchyroll.
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